The "Blowout" is held the Saturday before Spring Break begins, and Amherst's police captain Jennifer Gundersen said it was "perhaps one of the worst scenes we have ever had with drunkenness and unruliness."

Police from the city and university and state troopers in riot
gear converged on a crowd of about 4,000 people at an apartment complex
shortly after noon. Authorities said people on the property were
destroying things, and as officers began to disperse the crowd, they
were pelted with glass bottles, beer cans and snowballs.

After quieting the disturbance at the apartment complex, several
thousand people assembled near a frat house. That gathering became
dangerous and out of control, officials said, and when officers tried to
clear the crowd, they again were attacked with bottles, rocks, cans and
snowballs.

Prior to the event, students were surprised to hear that the massive party was not school sanctioned.